Justin

Graduation Rates by Region

The boxplot below shows that, while most CORE regions in TN have a graduation rate around 90%, we have some outliers in the Northwest and South Central regions.

The outlier in the Northwest region is Humboldt City, with a graduation rate of 68.5%. This school system stands out in other troubling ways, which will be visited again later.

As expected, a higher income from a particular county does result in a lower percentage of students that qualify as “Economically Disadvantaged” - students that qualified for free or reduced lunches.

Impact of Economic Disadvantage

In the plot below, we can see that the higher percentage of a student body that qualify for free or reduced lunches score lower in both Math and Science.

Humboldt City school system had 97.9% of their students qualify for free or reduced lunches. Students in the Humboldt City school system had a 43.8% and 38.4% proficiency rate in Science and Math, respectively. As you might recall, Humboldt City also had one of the lowest graduation rates in TN, at 68.5%.

On the opposite side, Lakeland City reported a 14.7% rate of Economically Disadvantaged students, while scoring 90.9% and 88.2% in Science and Math.